Wytches #1 – Review

The Story: And this is why no one should ever go into the woods without a scout troop leader in tow.

The Review: When you have a good imagination, it doesn’t take much for you to get paranoid, but even a person without a lick of the dreamer in them can appreciate how mysterious and frightening nature can be. That’s why the best horror stories are often anchored there, something Snyder seems to recognize better than most. In Swamp Thing, he spawned endless terror from the essence of nature; the Mers in The Wake rose from the sea; and the eponymous Wytches lurk in the deep woods.

Snyder has repeatedly described Wytches as inspired by strange encounters he’s had in the forest, and he does capture the eerie feeling that crawls up your neck as you pass through a thicket of trees at night, the unshakeable conviction that there is something watching you from the boughs, behind a trunk, within a hollow. The issue warns us to take the threat seriously from the start by consuming the doomed Ellen Cray* so chillingly, keeping you alert for danger as you continue reading.

Moreover, the scene indicates that while the Wytches are doing the dirty work, it’s the people around you to watch out for. When Ellen screams for her son Tim to help free her from the tree in which she’s trapped, he instead seals her fate, telling her unemotionally, “Pledged is pledged.” Who knows what twisted deal the kid made that’s worth his own mother’s life, but it does tell you the Wytches don’t necessarily come by their victims independently.

On the flipside, there’s Annie, the sadistic bully who terrorizes protagonist Sailor Rooks and, at a climactic moment, gets snatched up herself without any obvious pledging. Later, Sail confesses to her dad, “I wanted her to die!…I was wishing it! I was wishing it with all my—” But if the Wytches granted that wish and got Annie as their boon, why do we see something resembling a disfigured Annie prowling the boughs outside Sailor’s room, chittering as the Wytches do? The Wytches aren’t finished with Sail; they probably want more.

Or could it be that Sail herself has become pledged? Watching her from a distance is an unknown figure whom you can’t even distinguish as male or female, murmuring what has already become a dreaded word in the issue, “Pledge…? Pledge?” The same figure is present when Sail encounters the monstrous Annie, leaving behind its teeth outside her home in a way that feels very much like the whole family’s been marked.

That’s the core of pathos in this series, that Sail is basically an innocent victim who not only had to suffer Annie’s irrational, violent hatred (“You were born. I just hate you, bitch. That’s all. I hate your stupid face. I hate your gay little style. I just. Hate. You.”), but has inadvertently caught the attention of these woodland horrors. Unlike the evil Tim, Sail has a loving relationship with her parents, graphic artist Charlie and kindly paraplegic Lucy. With Annie out of her life, Sail might even have been able to move on from her trauma at her new school, once the kids moved past the whole “kill that girl” rumor. It’s never fair when your whole life is upended because of wrong time, wrong place situation, but that’s the very essence of horror stories.

Jock is one of those artists, like Frazier Irving or Francisco Francavilla, who leans toward the darkness. Thick brushstrokes define his shadowy style, in which all kinds of nasty, frightening things can hide. His figures are raw and unrefined, kind of one with nature themselves. When Jock draws the woods, they’re neither elegant nor friendly, but gnarled, skeletal, with limbs that seem alive. Even Hollingsworth throws caution to the wind, spattering a wild mix of colors together to stain rather than fill the page, as if the colors are reacting to the unnatural energy roiling in the story.

– Minhquan Nguyen